D&D 4E How does 4E hold up on verisimilitude?

[Hairfoot]

3.5 didn't do too badly in the realism stakes. The PCs tended toward superheroism, but nothing that couldn't be toned down by the DM.

How are you finding 4E in that regard? I haven't absorbed all the rules yet, but I was particularly taken aback by a power (can't remember which) that allows several attacks in a round with a crossbow or sling. The shot-a-round rule for light crossbows in 3.5 always irked me, and this seems to take it a step further. Is it typical, in your experience?

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Well, if you thought 3e did all-right as far as realism was concerned...

I'll put it this way ; I consider 3e and 4e to be equally realistic.

I'll add that when I want to pretend the campaign is realist, I play Riddle of Steel.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

3.5 didn't do too badly in the realism stakes. The PCs tended toward superheroism, but nothing that couldn't be toned down by the DM.

How are you finding 4E in that regard?

It's really, really bad. The designers made a lot of design decisions to enhance playability of the game at the expense of verisimilitude, realism, simulationism, whatever you want to call it. I know a lot of people like this, but it's exactly the opposite of what I want out of an RPG.

 

[Wormwood]

I'll put it this way ; I consider 3e and 4e to be equally realistic.

I'll second this.

4e just adds more fun to the mix.

 

[Skywalker]

I'll second this.

4e just adds more fun to the mix.

Yeah, I agree. If you played any version of D&D becuase you thought it was realistic then 4e will be much the same.

 

[Otterscrubber]

3.5 didn't do too badly in the realism stakes. The PCs tended toward superheroism, but nothing that couldn't be toned down by the DM.

How are you finding 4E in that regard? I haven't absorbed all the rules yet, but I was particularly taken aback by a power (can't remember which) that allows several attacks in a round with a crossbow or sling. The shot-a-round rule for light crossbows in 3.5 always irked me, and this seems to take it a step further. Is it typical, in your experience?

It's not doing too well on the realism front; it has dragons, and demons and magic and stuff.

 

[Obryn]

3.5 didn't do too badly in the realism stakes. The PCs tended toward superheroism, but nothing that couldn't be toned down by the DM.

How are you finding 4E in that regard? I haven't absorbed all the rules yet, but I was particularly taken aback by a power (can't remember which) that allows several attacks in a round with a crossbow or sling. The shot-a-round rule for light crossbows in 3.5 always irked me, and this seems to take it a step further. Is it typical, in your experience?

Whenever you ask about "versimilitude," I have to ask "versimilitude of what?"

Does 4e model any kinds of good physics? No. 3e did a better job of making the game kind of simulationist. It's clear in 4e that the rules are the rules of the game, not models of fantasy physics. Realism is one of the last considerations on every rule. There's no physical reason given why, for instance, fighters can only use their better powers once per day. If you had problems in 3e with "x per day" kinds of abilities, 4e will be even worse. 4e just goes with what makes for fun stories & good games, not for 'realism'.

Does 4e model action movies and fantasy novels? I'd say yes - absolutely. It's got all the tropes; the heroes coming back from being down, the single moment where your best killer move can be used, minions dropping like flies... Yeah, all of that.

-O

 

[mattdm]

It's really, really bad. The designers made a lot of design decisions to enhance playability of the game at the expense of verisimilitude, realism, simulationism, whatever you want to call it. I know a lot of people like this, but it's exactly the opposite of what I want out of an RPG.

I think it's a step up from 3E in this regard. In many cases, the complicated interactions of subsystems lead to results which are unrealistic for the sake of game balance, and then you have to decide which wins out.

My pet example is the bat — in real life, bats with echolocation can catch mosquitos while turning and swooping at high speed, can dodge wires that are hard to see with vision with the lights on, and seem in general to build a 3D mental picture of the world with this sense. In other words, there's no question that it's blindsight. But in 3.5, they get the much lesser blindsense ability — why? Because the game requires that player characters be able to turn into them, and the mechanics are such that this sense would be too powerful for that at the levels in which one could reasonably do it.

This is made worse by the perception that the game rules are also meant to essentially describe the physics of the world.

In 4E, that's clearly not true. Things are described as circles but mechanically represented as squares, and that's okay — the rules are there to help you display the world in-game in a quick and convenient manner, not to say how things "really are". The world itself is free to go on following common sense.

In other words, simplifying the rules doesn't ruin the ability to make your game "simulationist". It just means that the rules for playing the game aren't meant to be tools for running the universe — you should do that separately.

 

[Trainz]

Verisimilitude isn't realism, it is consistency within it's own given premise.

Yes, there is more verisimilitude in 4th ed than in 3rd.

 

[Keltheos]

It's not doing too well on the realism front; it has dragons, and demons and magic and stuff.

Rofl.